New York Yankees Star Throws Pitch Unlike Anything You've Ever Seen Before

The New York Yankees are off to a dominant start this 2024 season. The Yankees are an MLB-best 12-4 and have a plus-21 run differential entering Monday's series opener against the Toronto Blue Jays. They're also doing all this winning without their ace, Gerrit Cole, who's expected to miss the first few months of the season, but seems to have avoided Tommy John surgery (unlike many, many other pitchers this year).

The Yankees do have Nestor Cortes Jr. leading the rotation, though, and he put together one of the best starts of the season last week against the Miami Marlins when he threw eight innings of shutout baseball, allowing just two hits while striking out six.

He followed that up with a more pedestrian performance in his latest start on Sunday, but he had some fun early in the game.

In the bottom of the second inning of Sunday's game, an 8-7 walk-off win by the Cleveland Guardians, Cortes had one of the weirder pitches you'll ever see. Cortes went into his windup and lifted his leg to pitch as normally. However, then he put his leg back down and somewhat hesitated before he pitched. Not too weird yet...

But then it got weird.

Cortes then took his hand out of his glove and appeared to fake a throw. He then put the ball back in his glove and quickly fired a pitch to home plate. Guardians infielder Andrés Giménez was able to foul the pitch off.

Here's a video of the pitch, via Talkin' Yanks on X:

This is definitely one of the stranger pitches in MLB, but it's a sign of Cortes having fun on the mound. For what it's worth, there may have been some bad karma with the pitch, as Giménez ended up reaching on a fielding error by Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo on the very next pitch.

The Guardians also ended up getting to Cortes in the third and fifth innings of the game, as he allowed four earned runs and five hits across four-plus innings of work in the eventual Yankees loss.

Still, Cortes was having fun on the mound, which is a great sign for the Yankees after he had a down 2023 season. Cortes, who had a 2.44 ERA in 158 1/3 innings pitched in 2022, struggled mightily last year, sporting a 4.97 ERA in 63 1/3 innings pitched before his season ended in early August due to shoulder issues

Cortes seems healthy this year and will play a vital role in the Yankees' rotation, especially with Cole on the sidelines.